In recent years the float process of manufacturing flat glass has been adopted by the glass industry for the manufacture of flat glass. The process produces a continuous ribbon of glass delivered from a float glass chamber at an elevated temperature. The glass ribbon is moved through an annealing lehr in which the glass is cooled in a controlled manner to obtain stresses suitable for cutting the ribbon. When the glass is cooled to room temperature, it is cut into rectangular brackets. These brackets are subsequently cut by off-line cutting devices to produce flat glass articles such as windows for automotive vehicles. The flat glass articles are heated and subjected to a shaping operation to shape them into curved configurations. Such heated articles may be quenched from the higher temperature in order to temper the glass.
My copending U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 484,903, filed July 1, 1974 and entitled "Method of Cutting Glass," now U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,943, issued May 27, 1975 teaches a method of cutting flat glass as it emerges from the float glass manufacturing process prior to entering into an annealing lehr. My copending application is hereby incorporated into this application by reference. The application discloses the use of a single laser device for making cuts across a continuous ribbon of glass emerging from a float bath chamber in order to cut the ribbon into individual blocks of glass which subsequently may be processed through an annealing lehr to produce a finished block of glass. That application teaches that there is a specific relationship between the rate at which the glass ribbon may be cut, the power of the laser and the thickness of the glass.
It is object of this invention to provide a method for producing a final shape of an article of glass in which it is not necessary to reheat the glass in order either to bend and/or temper it. It is a further object of this invention to use the heat already found in a ribbon of glass produced by the float process for shaping and/or tempering glass articles produced therefrom.